Category: Scoop

It’s time to get back to our healthy lifestyle. Although all the non-Paleo foods and all the ciders were delicious, the fact of the matter is that I needed to get back on the wagon. It’s weird: Sherry and I actually look forward to getting back to eating right.

What you eat affects your body and your mind in many ways. If I eat a bunch of sugar or carb-heavy foods, I find myself more irritable, I feel physically hot, and mentally and physically sluggish; as if I were in a sort of quicksand. When I eat healthy foods, my mind is clearer, I don’t get hungry between meals, and I somehow just feel more energetic.

I watched the first game of the World Series last night, and I decided to have a few ciders and some popcorn. Neither of those are Paleo, but it was the World Series, I reasoned to myself. Well, I’m paying for it this morning. I had just gotten rid of the post-vacation bloating and mental fuzziness that I now have this morning. I have a work out scheduled for this evening after work that tends to help, but I also have Sherry’s amazing food prepped lunch ready to go and I’m sure dinner will be the same.

I never thought I’d be the guy who looks forward to eating healthy foods, but after four years, it’s amazing how much of an impact changing what I put into my body has made on not just my physical health, but my mental health. The same goes for running. I was just telling Sherry on Monday about how much I look forward to getting back to running. Not because I love running, but because I love how I feel when I’m running. Ok, not WHILE I’m physically out running, but how I feel when I am running 3-4 times a week. I just feel stronger and more fit. As much as I actually enjoy weightlifting and the benefits to my strength, it hasn’t done anything for my cardio, which I need to get back to as soon as I can.

I am going to try to start riding the stationary cycle on my non weightlifting days, but I’ve yet to actually do it. Maybe tomorrow. Tonight is for moving weight up and down.

Vacations can be many things: fun, busy, relaxing, stressful, miserable, memorable, or an experience you would rather forget. In my case, this last vacation was relaxing, memorable, and full of new experiences and best of all, a lot of time with my wife. Unfortunately for her, she spent the last 2/3 of the vacation with a horrible cold, but she soldiered on and did her best to keep up despite my wanting us to relax and take some down-time. She said she wasn’t going to spend her vacation in a hotel or Air BnB sitting inside. Fair enough.

In terms of places we visited, it was great. We went to Boston (visiting my cousin Andras and his wife Carol and spending some time in the city going to many historic sites), New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine, and up into Canada where we went to Montreal and Quebec City.

I took my drone and got some great photos and videos that I’m still working on. I did not fly in Canada because I am not licensed in Canada, and flying there would have been illegal (and I don’t like doing illegal things unless it’s speeding).

In terms of food and drink, let’s say there was very little restraint. I didn’t say that we were unrestrained: we did try to make some healthy decisions to mitigate the impact, but I did imbibe a lot of ciders and sweet things I otherwise don’t allow myself. In terms of food, I ate as best as possible with some exceptions (how can you go to Canada and not eat poutine, or go to Legal Seafoods in Cambridge and not have clam chowder?!?!?!?!).

From a culinary standpoint, I had some amazing foods. Some healthier than others, but all delicious. I had some amazing (and some just ok) ciders. The breakfasts in Montreal were some of the best I’ve ever had outside of Scotland and Ireland.

The biggest challenge for me was finding gyms to work out in. I did find a gym in Cambridge when we first went on vacation, but in Montreal, I never go to lift any weights and my Achilles heel was still too sore for me to run. Once we got back to the US, I didn’t find any gyms in Portland, ME that I could drop into, either, so my lifting took an 8 day break which I regretted, but there wasn’t anything I could do about that.

I’m back now, and I’m also back to eating right and exercising. I’ve already had two lifting sessions, and I’m dealing with some DOMS right now, but it’s not as bad today as it was on Sunday. My next weightlifting session is tomorrow, and I’m sure by the end of the week, my muscles will be right back into the swing of things. As for lost progress, I was pleased that I only lost about 15 lbs in the squat and 10 lbs on my bench and overhead press. I should be back to where I was prior to my vacation within the week.

Today is the first day of our two-week vacation to New England. The real challenges for us will be the following:

• Eating healthy: temptation will be strong with lots of non-Paleo foods.
• Exercise: I need a gym with free weights, and I’m going to have to find some to drop in at.
• Alcohol consumption: it’s fall, which means it’s apple season, and we will be visiting many cideries.

On vacation, Sherry and I tend to relax our rules a bit on what we eat, so we’ve decided that when we go off the diet, we will be sharing portions to mitigate the damage and the calories. It’s a good plan; we’ll see how it works out.

As for exercise, normally I can run, but with the Achilles heel injury, I’m stuck doing weights. That’s been fine at home where I have my own gym, but now that I’m traveling, I will need to find a gym to workout in. In the cities it shouldn’t be too difficult. I might even be able to get form checks on my exercises which is a plus. I hope to get a t-shirt from every gym I visit.

Alcohol consumption will likely be the toughest to tackle. We enjoy cider, and we enjoy drinking while on vacation to relax and to experience different flavors in the different parts of the world. We’ll try to keep it reasonable, but sometimes, drinks taste too good to not imbibe.

We will be visiting relatives and then going off on our own to see the fall colors and explore Montreal and Quebec City in Canada and then Portland, ME and hopefully some lighthouses. I brought my drone with me to get some aerial photos and video (but not in Canada where it’s illegal for me to fly without a Canadian license).

I’ll be posting my experiences while on my vacation with diet and exercise and my ability to channel as much willpower as possible. It will be a trying time, but I refuse to partake in regional foods. If I gain a little weight, it’s okay; I can lose it later. But I do plan on being as smart as I can about it.

My journey with better health and fitness hasn’t been a smooth road. It hasn’t been all up-hill, though, and at times, it really felt like I was on an easy down-hill jog while still losing weight and getting fitter. These days, however, with the Achilles heel injury lingering, I feel like I’m not able to make the progress I really want. I’ve been able to lift weights, and my progress is really great, but even there, I face one big hurdle: self doubt.

Even though I’ve exceeded my own expectations, every time I walk up to the bar for my first heavy squat of the day, my mind screams, “Don’t do this! It’s too heavy! You won’t be able to do it!” I have to stop, take a breath, and just go for it. Each time for the last four sessions, I’ve had to do this. Each time, I completed all five reps in all five sets. Is it getting harder? Certainly. But I’m still able to do it. The last set is the hardest, but I’m following Mehdi’s recommendations for 3 minutes of rest between sets, and I can definitely feel the difference between the 1:30 and 3:00 rest periods.

It seems to me that the biggest hurdle, regardless of any endeavor, is self doubt. It’s the first, and in my experience, the highest hurdle to get past. Once I can get past that nagging voice in my head that says, “You can’t do it,” the rest of the hurdles seem much easier to get over. Muscle soreness? Keep going. Out of breath? Slow down, but keep going. Typically, as I keep going, the hurdles actually get smaller and smaller. By the end, it’s just me and whatever exercise I’m doing, or in the case of being on a diet, my body gets used to it, my mind gets used to the new paradigm, and what were hurdles before are smooth asphalt beneath my feet.

Something I learned that’s fascinating to me is that self-doubt is a survival instinct. It’s natural, and it’s actually a good thing. It’s the mechanism that makes us search for easier ways to do things to conserve energy. Of course, the problem here is that the endeavor we are wanting to start is that of using energy to get stronger. So, that seems counter-productive, right? Well, on the surface, yes. But if we understand why that instinct is there, we can get past it easier. At least it works for me. The same holds true for eating. Our instinct is to eat as much as we can to store up energy in case lean times come and we have to go without food for days. That’s highly unlikely for us in the first world, and we know our next meal is only 4-6 hours away, so it makes it easier for us to push that plate away and say, “Enough.”

For me, the toughest hurdle in limiting the amount of food I eat is held up by two legs: the first is that I love delicious food, and I love eating. The second leg of the hurdle is that finishing my plate was ingrained in me by my father as a child. I was punished for not finishing my food, and I have a difficult time leaving any food on my plate. That’s why I prefer to get plates with less food on them. Once I’m finished, I feel like I did a good thing, even if it wasn’t quite enough.

We all face the hurdles. Some of them can be pretty tough to get past, but ultimately, we can get past them. I got past mine, and I continue to surprise myself all the time by getting past each new hurdle as I lift heavier and heavier weights.

I’ve written before about the hardest part of getting healthy and fit; starting. While that’s the biggest hurdle for most people (and it was for me, too!), the next challenge is to keep going even when you don’t necessarily feel like you’re making progress. It’s even harder when you see the scale rise when you’re doing everything right, or after a lapse in your diet.

The journey is an uphill battle with doubts, temptations, fatigue, and others weighing you down and trying to pull you back from making progress. The true test of character is how you handle adversity, and sticking to the plan is no different.

For me, the solution was to make my goal not just something I was willing to work towards, but something I wasn’t willing to give up on or to trade anything else for. It’s one thing to want success; it’s another to refuse to accept defeat.

It’s not easy. Anything worth having takes effort and sometimes even some sacrifice. But in the end, when you succeed, you’ll not only realize the benefits of being healthier and fitter, but you’ll take pride in knowing you succeeded where you didn’t think you could, and you made it past the adversity and met and defeated the challenges.

There is a big secret to losing weight that nobody wants you to know. The government, the nutrition industry, the health industry, gyms and fitness companies, and definitely not the diet supplements and diet industry. It’s a secret so devastating that they spend millions of dollars to ensure you are fed misinformation to ensure you never find out. What is the secret to weight loss?

A healthy diet.

That’s all it takes. Eat meat and vegetables. Avoid foods with added sugar. Avoid grains, legumes, and artificial ingredients. Get up and move a little here and there.

If you want to get strong or make your heart and muscles healthier, then get some exercise. But if you want to lose weight, you will have to change your diet. That’s right: you WILL have to change your diet. There’s no other way.

Think about it. The way you eat got you to where you are today. If you are obese, that’s a direct result of your diet. If you are at a healthy weight, it’s also because of your diet. When it comes to our weight, we literally are what we eat. Unhealthy foods often leads to unhealthy weight.

There is no silver bullet to obesity. Even pills, powders, patches, and surgical procedures have consequences, sometimes fatal. The only sure-fire way to lose weight is to change your diet which means changing your lifestyle. And not for just a little while, either. This has to be a permanent change to get permanent results. How can you expect to lose weight after changing your diet and then return to your previous diet without gaining it all back? This isn’t logical, yet it’s what many people do.

Look, I know this post isn’t all flowers and happiness because the title led you to believe that I had some secret information on losing weight. Well, I didn’t lie: the secret is that it takes time, discipline, and a change in diet/lifestyle. What many people read into the title was an easy or fast (or both) way to lose weight. Sadly, there is no fast or easy way to lose weight. Unless you consider eating tasty and healthy food easy. I did. I couldn’t believe I was losing as much weight as quickly as I was in my first year of my new lifestyle. I wasn’t hungry, I felt great, and the food was amazing (and all home made). I didn’t have to buy pre-made meals or pay some plan. All I had to do was make good food from whole ingredients.

If you are already eating healthy food made from whole ingredients that avoids grains, legumes, and anything with added sugar, congratulations! You’re on the right path! If you are wanting to make a change to lose weight or to get healthier, I recommend looking into Whole30 or The Paleo Diet. They both worked for me, and have been working for over four years. Results don’t lie.

Yesterday, I went into my gym thinking that I wasn’t going to do well for the following reasons:

• I didn’t get enough sleep the night before and I was tired
• I took two days off from lifting due to life/blood donation
• The last session was tough and I really pushed to finish my squats

I stuck to the plan and lifted anyway. To my surprise, things went exceedingly well. I finished all my sets and reps without issue, and while it was a challenge, I didn’t feel near my limit.

Somehow, I had gotten stronger.

Well, that’s the plan, at least: to get stronger. I’ve been trusting in the StrongLifts 5×5 plan for almost five weeks now, and I’m continuing to make solid progress. It’s progress that’s wildly beyond what I thought was possible, but it’s all there. I’m squatting almost triple my starting weight just over four weeks ago!

The reason I mention this is because I didn’t think I would be able to do this weightlifting thing. I didn’t think I could enjoy it, and I didn’t think I would be able to stick with it. I really didn’t think I would see the gains I’m seeing so quickly. I know many others who’ve spent years in the gym and haven’t progressed so quickly, yet here I am, a 52-year old lifting newbie making serious gains!

Don’t talk yourself out of trying something because you think you might fail. Talk yourself into trying something with the knowledge that if you do fail, it’s just another lesson learned in what not to do next time you try. Failure to accomplish a goal isn’t the end of the world; not even trying to reach the goal is the end before you even begin.

I read an article about where the 10,000 steps a day trend came from. It turns out that some company making fitness watches thought that it’d be a good, round number to set as a goal that is roughly two or three times the number of steps people normally get in a day. Is there any basis in 10,000 steps a day being good for you? Not really. It’s not bad, but it’s not going to help you lose weight.

Don’t get me wrong; getting steps is good for you. It’s better than sitting all day, but not for the reasons most people try to get steps. Here are some reasons it’s good to get those steps in (and to get up and off your butt!):

• Getting up helps your hips and back by allowing you to stretch them. Staying in one position for long periods of time can lead to muscle pain and even back problems due to poor posture most of us have when sitting.
• Moving helps your body digest. That’s why walking after a meal is actually very good for you!
• Sitting for long periods of time has been linked to heart disease. Why? There are many reasons scientists think they are linked, but the fact remains that people who sit for long periods of time tend to have heart disease. Or is it people with heart disease tend to sit a lot? I’d rather get those steps in.
• Diabetes. Believe it or not, insulin resistance is higher after sitting or laying down for long periods of time. People with higher body weight tend to have more problems with this.
• Getting up and walking for a bit a few times a day helps relieve neck and shoulder strain from looking at your monitor all day. It also helps relieve eye strain.

What 10,000 steps a day will not do, however, is allow you to eat whatever you want and lose weight. 10,000 steps a day won’t even actually help you lose weight unless you change your diet (at which time it’s actually your diet that’s making you lose weight, not the steps). The 10,000 steps can help your heart if you make those steps brisk, but to get really true benefits from exercise, you have to either lift lots of weights or get your heart rate up for at least 30 minutes.

So, get those steps in. They won’t hurt you, but don’t think that walking 10,000 steps a day will replace a solid fitness plan. It just won’t.

There are days when you’re hoping or expecting to make progress in one measurable metric or another (like weighing yourself on the scale, or measuring your waist) and you don’t see the results you were looking for. This is disheartening, and makes you question yourself, your dedication, the effort, and even the program itself. This is natural, and you’re not alone in this thinking. It’s also where your will, determination, and perseverance are tested. This is the moment that separates you from everyone else who tried and failed.

I find that if I don’t reach a goal in one area, I look to other areas to find victories. So I didn’t lose any weight? Well, at least my clothes all feel good. I didn’t lose any inches off my waist? Well, I’m eating better and I feel more mental clarity. My BMI is still unacceptable? That’s okay: I’m doing all the right things, and this is just a plateau. Plateaus are natural, and soon, I’ll be off of it.

What separated me from all the other people who started down their health and fitness journey when I did and failed is that I stuck with it and kept putting in the work. Putting in the work might be as simple as just continuing to food prep, to eat the right foods, and to get the exercise in. It might mean reevaluating what I’ve been doing and adjusting as necessary. Either way, I never quit.

Did I question myself? The process? The Diet? Sure. But I only let it go so far as to question whether I was properly adhering to the process and diet. If there was anything not being done right, I was pretty certain it was me. And sure enough, I either wasn’t getting enough sleep or maybe not even eating enough (did you know that not eating enough can sometimes stall your weight loss? Crazy, right!?!?!).

Find the victories. Sometimes, when you can’t find one, the most basic one will always hold true: at least you’re doing something to improve your health, get fit, and lose some weight. At least you’re an active participant in your health, and you’re not surrendering. And that’s a lot.

Throughout the years, I’ve tried unsuccessfully to exercise regularly. It wasn’t until three years a go when I began running with a careful and well-thought out approach that I was able to stick with it successfully. What was the difference between all the times before and now? Two things: slow progress and rest.

Slow Progress. In the past, every time I went to the gym with a fellow Marine, they pumped hard. So hard, in fact, that they would often leave the gym unable to lift a soda to their faces. They took this as a badge of honor, and would proudly proclaim their spaghetti arms to anyone who was within earshot to listen. “I pumped it HARD!” When I thought for a brief moment that I’d like to join them, they pushed me into their same routine as if I’d been working out with them for years. That was the first mistake; there was no learning moves with lighter weights, no getting familiar with the routines or allowing my muscles to gain the all-important muscle memory. Worse, exerting to 100% on the first day guaranteed DOMS, or Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness. This soreness was so acute that I couldn’t wash my hair the next morning in the shower; I couldn’t lift my arms to my head! This also made me want to never go back to the gym and lift another weight again. The experience was so bad, I stayed out of gyms for the rest of my Marine Corps career as long as I had a choice, and I didn’t return to one until 24 years after leaving the Corps.

Rest. This is a curious topic, because I had forgotten that even in Marine Corps boot camp, days of rest were scheduled in between the running days. As a “Admin Private,” or “Secretary” in boot camp, I was responsible for hand-writing the training cards, or what the Drill Instructors called “T-Cards” each day for the Drill Instructors to have with them in their pockets. These were 3”x5” cards they carried in their pockets and would pull out from time to time to help them stay on-task and on-schedule. I remember seeing the entire schedule for the platoon all the way from day 1 to day 88. This information was considered secret, and I was forbidden from sharing it, but I do remember seeing a pattern: running day was followed by non-running day. Sure, the Drill Instructors would still make us do push-ups, bends and thrusts, and other exercises as punishments for mistakes, but I remember that these sessions were much shorter on our rest days. Of course, the Privates/Recruits never knew that these were calculated rest days, but the Marine Corps was in the business of building men out of soft boys, and they had perfected the craft.

When I was putting my own fitness plan together, I remembered how bad I felt after my weightlifting experience, and I decided to start slow and light and build naturally. I remember the advice given to my by Gunnery Sergeant Whiteman, a marathon runner. When I asked him how I should get into long-distance running, he said, “Walk for 30 minutes. When your body is ready, you will find yourself wanting to jog. As you jog, your body will want to push faster and harder, and the next thing you know, you’ll be running. Whatever you do, just do it for at least 30 minutes.” I took his advice, and added the wisdom of Marine Corps Boot Camp to it by implementing rest days between my exercise days. Within three months of starting, I was running sub-8 minute miles comfortably and was able to join the National Guard after a 20 year absence from the military.

A month ago, I began weightlifting. As my Achilles heel is still recovering from an injury over a month ago, I decided I had to do something to not only keep exercising, but to build strength. I began looking into exercise plans and found one that seemed to echo my own exercise philosophy exactly: StrongLifts 5×5. I started in earnest and studied the plan, the different lifts, and techniques. I have been diligent in sticking with the plan, and the result is that a month later, I’ve more than doubled my squat weight and I’m now nearly deadlifting my body weight. This progress has been slow and calculated, but steady and impressive. I experienced a little muscle discomfort in the first week, but that was more due to stretching muscles in a way they hadn’t been stretched in a very long time (squats) and the pain went away with each session in my gym.

I see too many people try to do boot camp sessions or hard-core cardio sessions and then end up never going back. I get it; I’ve been there. The problem is that too few personal trainers or coaches take the time to let you ease into a routine, to allow you and your muscles to learn the different moves, to get accustomed to the new lifestyle of being active. Then, there’s the fact that too many people think that day after day is the best way to go about getting results without thought to giving the body time to rest. It is during rest that the body heals and builds. If you’re always exercising, you’re always tearing down without time to build and recover.

In my one month of weightlifting, I’ve realized incredible results I thought were impossible to achieve in this short period of time. I’m much stronger, my joints feel better (contrary to what I thought would happen, frankly), and my clothes even fit better for the first time in years. Even through running, I didn’t see this dramatic of a change in this short period of time. I attribute that to good genes (my sister is also proof of that) but also to sticking with the plan and eating a good, natural, and consistent diet of meat and vegetables, eschewing anything with added-sugar, grains, legumes, and dairy.

Slow it down and build rest into your fitness routine. It may be the missing link between where you are now and where you see yourself.